Dustin Flundra of Pincher Creek rode Stampede Warrior to the Calgary Stampede title with a score of 89.00 on Sunday, which got him into a tiebreaker, which he won.Lorraine Hjalte
/ Calgary Herald

Kaycee Feild of Spanish Fork, Utah, takes home the bronze trophy in the bareback event, riding Mucho Dinero to a score of 92.00 during the rodeo finals at the Calgary Stampede.Jenn Pierce
/ Calgary Herald

Not only his upgraded ability aboard a saddlebronc. But his poise at the can.

Flundra, once upon a time, needed to draw a horse for Showdown Sunday at the Calgary Stampede. But the teen feared the outcome.

One outcome especially.

“All I remember is walking up on the stage, going, ‘The only one I don’t want is Painted Smile,’ ” recalled Flundra. “I pulled it out, mumbled something I can’t say to you guys, and it’s Painted Smile. I was a nervous little man behind the chutes for the rest of the time. It probably showed.

“She was the terror of the cabbage patch — nobody could ride her at the time.”

Flundra, that day, did not come close to changing that.

“About three jumps (in) and I might have been able to slap the top of the Jumbotron before I came back down,” said Flundra. “I had plenty of time to think about it before I hit the ground.

“I did grow from that experience. I knew I wasn’t going to do that again — let a horse have me mentally beat. What you think about comes about a lot of times.”

“When I put my hand in the can to draw the thing out — usually I fish around a little bit — and I just pulled the first one out that I touched,” said the pride of Twin Butte, Alta. “I was happy. That’s what I wanted to get on. She’s such a great horse. Electric. Showy. Everything you could ask for, especially on a day like this when you need something to really rise about everybody else.”

And it worked, mostly.

Flundra piled up 89.0 points — but so did Wade Sundell. (Chad Ferley and Jacobs Crawley had been good — 88.5 and 86.5, respectively — but not good enough.)

Which necessitated a ride-off.

Which Flundra — again in fine form, this time aboard Holly Blues — grabbed, with 87.5 points. Sundell settled for 86.0.

“To win this rodeo? Of all of them, it’s one I’ve wanted to win since I was a little kid in the backyard riding on the bucking barrel,” said Flundra. “Now to get here in the four-round and win $100,000? Dream come true. This is one of the biggest accomplishments — if not the biggest accomplishment — that I’ve had so far in my rodeo career.”

For Flundra, the weekend included some dirty work Saturday.

Yep, he’d had to muscle through the wild card side of the program.

“I had to do it the hard way,” said Flundra. “But to get (to the final of) this one, it’s a long road anyway. You’ve got to ride in four (go-rounds) and you’ve got to ride against nine of the best guys in the world in your pool. To get through your pool, regardless of how you did it, that’s a pretty long road.”

FEILD OF DREAMS

Kaycee Feild happily pocketed the bareback jackpot here in 2012. And again Sunday.

This one, he insisted, means more.

These days, he’s got a young family — wife Stephanie and daughter Chaimberlyn Dawn — and investments to manage. Not to mention a (buck-free) future to ponder.

“Cowboys don’t get paid a whole lot, so when they retire, they don’t actually retire,” said Feild. “They’ve got to get another job doing something, usually in the rodeo arena. But this $100,000 is kind of setting it up where I don’t have to rodeo as long as I need to and beat up my body — (I can) have a good retirement and stay home with my family, and kind of pay it back for being on the road 265 days out of the year. It kind of wears on the family more than me.

“To stay home after I retire is going to be really important.”

But not one day soon — because the 27-year-old remains at the peak of his game.

Sunday started with a 91.5-point ride — and actually got better.

After posting the top mark in the long round, Feild cinched the championship with 92.0 on the aptly named Mucho Dinero.

“An awesome day,” said the Payson, Utah, native. “Behind the chutes has been a lot of fun — and, obviously, riding has been a lot of fun. I’m just a blessed young cowboy.”

His showdown chums didn’t leave him much margin for error.

Steven Peebles, with Trail Dust, earned 90.0 points, while Austin Foss, with Special Delivery, was good for 88.5. Bezanson, Alta., cowboy Dusty LaValley picked up 87.5.

So Feild had to be superb.

And he was — on a horse he’d ridden in Ponoka.

“He was tough (Sunday), the smart sucker,” said Feild, three-time-defending world champion. “He was trying to get away from me. It was a lot of fun. He’d duck and dive, kind of stall out . . . for a second, get higher and jump forward, try to leave you on the end of your arm.

“I was throwing caution to the wind. That $100,000 looks pretty good.”

His newest trophy will find itself on a table in the Feild household next to the Stampede hardware he won here as a novice.

“It kind of jump-started my career . . . took me from a boy to a man.”

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